Baku, Azerbaijan: vandalism at its height

Just on 26th April, I reported that the authorities have removed Mashadi Azizbekov's statue from a central park under a pretext of renovation. After the demolition of the monument to 26 Baku Commissars, and the removal of Narimanov's bust and Musabekov's statue, this was another Bolshevik monument being an object of recent vandalism activities of the city authorities. And in the places of these monuments they build ... fountains! Giant fountains that sing, dance and show striptease. And all of these in a city where an average apartment receives tap water only in 3 hours a day!

And imagine - we are receiving more good news such that! Today I have learned that the authorities have removed the statue of Prokopius Dzhaparidze, another revolutionary, from one of the city parks.

[Moreover, at another part of the city, they are demolishing Prophet Muhammed Mosque, and currently its minaret is the last remnant being erased. The reason - the mosque was built on illegal grounds.]

Let me repeat once again that I am not a communist, rather I am a fan of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, which those revolutionaries fought with and at the end managed to depose. However, to demolish statues is purely a job fit for barbarians. You can demolish a monument, and build a fountain instead, but you can't erase history.

R.I.P. Jean Baudrillard! As Vesti.az paraphrased you, Soviet Azerbaijan never existed! It was a myth, the barbarians can claim, after they'll remove the last "communist" monument in the city - the statue of Dr. Nariman Narimanov. Oh, you don't know the news? The Press Office of the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan announced that "all monuments to Bolsheviks in Baku will be demolished".

Welcome to Absurdistan!

P.S. Recently, rumours have spread out that schools No. 132 and 134 will also be demolished. Besides, these school are situated at the city center, in celebrated Istiglaliyyat avenue (Nikolayevskaya street), their building is an important historical monument. Though rumours have proved to be wrong, we are going to lose that historical monument anyway. Instead of a genuine monument, we are going to have a fake "architectural landmark". See the photos below.

Unknown archive photo (public domain)

Before 1917 October Revolution, in this building there was Saint Nina Gymnasium for Girls.

This is my photo taken this week. The entire building is fenced. What will happen later can be guessed from the images on the fence and from the next photo.

Photo from Day.az

This is how the "renovated" school will look like. No history, no heritage, and no memoirs of the past. The entirely new building with "fake" "architectural" façade. Interestingly, the building known as Mirzabayov Mansion is absent from the last photo [of renovated school]. What are they going to do? To demolish it?

And here is the Mirzabayov Mansion below - in case, they'll demolish it, have a look at the photo...

Photo from Ahmed's photoblog